Next-Generation Support From SAP Leverages Machine Learning and AI to Improve Customer Experience

WALLDORF, Germany, April 11, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced enhancements to its Next-Generation Support concept. These include developments to AI-driven features such as incident solution matching and real-time support resources like the Schedule an Expert and Expert Chat services. Through the integration of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), these intelligent tools are helping to automate the customer support experience and deliver targeted results in a shorter amount of time.

"The overall mission of the Next-Generation Support approach from SAP is to minimize the effort and time required by SAP customers, while maximizing their business outcomes," said Andreas Heckmann, global senior vice president and head of customer success services, SAP Digital Business Services, SAP. "The Intelligent Enterprise requires speed and precision, and the continued integration of machine learning and AI into the Next-Generation Support concept has enabled us to provide just that. These intelligent technologies enable our support tools and support specialists to learn from the past and deliver accurate solutions for inquiries in real time as well as customized, proactive recommendations before an incident shows up."

In an effort to raise the bar in customer support, SAP Digital Business Services continues to leverage machine learning and AI to optimize its real-time support experience for customers and its built-in support features:

• Incident solution matching: Through the recent addition of incident solution matching to SAP® ONE Support Launchpad, SAP customers get customized recommendations ranked according to semantic relevance. This new tool leverages natural language processing to analyze an incident as the user types information about the incident into the form and provides relevant information from the SAP Knowledge Base Article service and the SAP Notes service. SAP Digital Business Services plans further integration of machine learning and AI, saving SAP customers time and helping them be more cost-efficient.
• Built-in support: SAP continues to build support into its products. Already part of SAP S/4HANA® Cloud, built-in support is now available for SAP Integrated Business Planning, a solution to enable the intelligent enterprise by making planning easier, faster and smarter. In a continued effort to optimize the customer support experience, the built-in support concept moves support into the product, increases personalization and fosters collaboration among experts.

"The SAP CoPilot digital assistant, with its built-in support, provides customers of the SAP Integrated Business Planning solution quick access to SAP from within the application to get support and share their ideas to improve our product further. Built-in support also helps SAP provide efficient support as context information about the app and the actual system is automatically shared through customer incident information," says Franz Hero, senior vice president and head of development, Transportation and Logistics Application Innovation, SAP.

The direction for product support is clear. Integrated into SAP CoPilot, conversational AI makes it possible for customers to converse with the system, while the digital assistant uses the system context and other data to provide fast answers for customers' technical questions. In the future it's predicted that some questions won't even have to be asked, with the digital assistant in the application giving customers all the support and information they need to avoid potential problems.

With the live support services Expert Chat and Schedule an Expert, the customer experience is being continuously improved as those tools are extended to additional solutions, enabling customers to get in touch directly with a support expert from SAP. With machine learning and AI working in the background, support specialists are equipped with the information necessary to provide targeted recommendations in live sessions:

• Schedule an Expert: SAP customers can now schedule a 30-minute Skype session with an SAP expert. This new live channel is already available for over 50 SAP solutions and was recently made available for customers' open incidents. In 2018, SAP customers using Schedule an Expert reduced their interactions for incidents by up to 52 percent, which freed up considerable time for customers and engineers to deal with other important tasks.
• Expert Chat: SAP customers can open a live chat for incidents and start a conversation with the same SAP expert who works on traditional incidents. Currently, 20 percent of the incoming incident volume represents customers using Expert Chat to get answers to their technical questions.

A wide range of self-service options complements these services, giving customers a way to find answers quickly themselves.

In recognition of these advances, Next-Generation Support was awarded the 2018 Technology Services Industry Association's (TSIA) STAR award for Best Practices in Support Services. It was also named to the Association of Support Professionals' annual list of the Top Ten Best Support Web sites. In addition, the online support section of SAP.com was awarded first place for usability in the annual review of siteIQ eBusiness Index.

Visit the SAP News Center. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews.

About SAP
As the cloud company powered by SAP HANA®, SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software, helping companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 77% of the world's transaction revenue touches an SAP® system. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers' businesses into intelligent enterprises. SAP helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want – without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables more than 425,000 business and public customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, SAP helps the world run better and improve people's lives. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "predict," "should" and "will" and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP's future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.

© 2019 SAP SE. All rights reserved.
SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE in Germany and other countries. Please see https://www.sap.com/copyright for additional trademark information and notices.

Note to editors:
To preview and download broadcast-standard stock footage and press photos digitally, please visit www.sap.com/photos. On this platform, you can find high resolution material for your media channels. To view video stories on diverse topics, visit www.sap-tv.com. From this site, you can embed videos into your own Web pages, share video via email links, and subscribe to RSS feeds from SAP TV.

Please consider our privacy policy. If you received this press release in your e-mail and you wish to unsubscribe to our mailing list please contact [email protected] and write Unsubscribe in the subject line.

For customers interested in learning more about SAP products:
Global Customer Center: +49-180-534-34-24
United States Only: 1 (800) 872-1SAP (1-800-872-1727)

For more information, press only:
Martin Gwisdalla, SAP, +49 (6227) 7-67275, [email protected], CET
Jennifer Kohanim, FleishmanHillard, +1 (617) 692-0535, [email protected], ET
SAP News Center press room; [email protected]

SOURCE SAP

WANT YOUR COMPANY'S NEWS FEATURED ON PRNEWSWIRE.COM?

440k+
Newsrooms &
Influencers

9k+
Digital Media
Outlets

270k+
Journalists
Opted In

GET STARTED